A Good Hanging and other Stories by Ian Rankin Page B

clothes and stuff. That morning. I didn’t know anything about the accident and I went in to clean.’
    ‘The bed had been slept in?’
    ‘Looked like it. Sheets all rumpled. And his suitcase was on the floor, only half unpacked. Not that there was much to unpack.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘A single change of clothes, I’d say. I remember them because they seemed mucky, you know, not fresh. Not the sort of stuff I’d take on holiday with me.’
    ‘What? Like he’d been working in them?’
    She considered this. ‘Maybe.’
    ‘No point wearing clean clothes for fishing,’ Thomson added. But Rebus wasn’t listening.
    Ford’s clothes, the clothes he had been working in while laying the floor. It made sense. Abbot bludgeoned him, stripped him and covered his body in fresh cement. He’d taken the clothes away with him and put them in a case, opening it in the hotel room, ruffling the sheets. Simple, but effective. Effective these past thirty years. The motive? A falling out perhaps, or simple greed. It was a small company, but growing, and perhaps Abbot hadn’t wanted to share. Rebus placed a five-pound note on the table.
    ‘To cover the next couple of rounds,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘I’d better be off. Some of us are still on duty.’
     
    There were things to be done. He had to speak to his superior, Chief Inspector Lauderdale. And that was for starters. Maybe Ford’s Australian sister could be traced this time round. There had to be someone out there who could acknowledge that Ford had suffered from a broken leg in youth, and that he had a crooked finger. So far, Rebus could think of only one person - Alexander Abbot. Somehow, he didn’t think Abbot could be relied on to tell the truth, the whole truth.
    Then there was the hotel register. The forensics lab could ply their cunning trade on it. Perhaps they’d be able to say for certain that Ford’s signature was merely a bad rendition of Abbot’s. But again, he needed a sample of Ford’s handwriting in order to substantiate that the signature was not genuine. Who did he know who might possess such a document? Only Alexander Abbot. Or Mr Hillbeith, but Mr Hillbeith had not been able to help.
    ‘No, Inspector, as I told you, it was Mr Abbot who handled all the paperwork, all that side of things. If there is an invoice or a receipt, it will be in his hand, not Mr Ford’s. I don’t recall ever seeing Mr Ford writing anything.’
    No through road.
    Chief Inspector Lauderdale was not wholly sympathetic. So far all Rebus had to offer were more suppositions to add to those of the Fife Police at the time. There was no proof that Alexander Abbot had killed his partner. No proof that the skeleton was Hugh Ford. Moreover, there wasn’t even much in the way of circumstantial evidence. They could bring in Abbot for questioning, but all he had to do was plead innocence. He could afford a good lawyer; and even bad lawyers weren’t stupid enough to let the police probe too deeply.
    ‘We need proof, John,’ said Lauderdale, ‘concrete evidence. The simplest proof would be that hotel signature. If we prove it’s not Ford’s, then we have Abbot at that hotel, Abbot in the boat and Abbot shouting that his friend has drowned, all without Ford having been there. That’s what we need. The rest of it, as it stands, is rubbish. You know that.’
    Yes, Rebus knew. He didn’t doubt that, given an hour alone with Abbot in a darkened alley, he’d have his confession. But it didn’t work like that. It worked through the law. Besides, Abbot’s heart might not be too healthy. BUSINESSMAN, 55, DIES UNDER QUESTIONING. No, it had to be done some other way.
    The problem was, there was no other way. Alexander Abbot was getting away with murder. Or was he? Why did his story have to be false? Why did the body have to be Hugh Ford’s? The answer was: because the whole thing seemed to fit. Only, the last piece of the jigsaw had been lost under some sofa or chair a long time ago, so